Benjamin Bubar Jr.

Benjamin Calvin Bubar Jr. (June 17, 1917 – May 15, 1995), also known as Ben Bubar, was an ordained minister who was the youngest person ever to win election to the Maine House of Representatives at age twenty-one and served as the Prohibition Party's presidential candidate in 1976 and 1980 and was the last elected official to do so until James Hedges in 2016.

Life

Benjamin Calvin Bubar Jr. was born on June 17, 1917, in Blaine, Maine to Benjamin Bubar Sr. and Mary Louise Heal. His father was the first ordained United Baptist minister in Maine and was active in politics. His father served as a member of the Maine House of Representatives, ran as an independent candidate in the 1936 gubernatorial election receiving 5,862 votes, and was a speaker at Ku Klux Klan rallies. On February 14, 1946, he married Virginia Ireland, with whom he had two children. He moved to China, Maine in 1952, and began working for the Maine Christian Civic League where he would serve as superintendent from 1954 to 1984.

Bubar ran for a seat in the state house in the 1938 election, despite not being able to vote as his twenty-first birthday was three days after the primary election, as a member of the Republican Party. He and his three friends were critical of the incumbent, who was sixty years old, and drew straws to decide who should run against him with Bubar winning. He won in the election becoming the youngest person to serve in the state legislature and served from 1939 to 1945. He was serving as the chair of the board of selectmen in his area by 1945. He created a weekly newspaper in Mars Hill, Maine, and later sold it.

Bubar died on May 15, 1995, in Waterville, Maine from a heart attack after suffering from Parkinson's disease.